Willing To Try
by Ellora-Carlyle
Summary: Locked away in her own personal prison, she never smiles and never speaks. The Cat is determined to do all that he can to make sure this changes. However, it may take more than just a few circus acts to make her smile again. And for once, he might have to put all of his antics aside to bring her out of the darkness she is drowning in. Rated for possible dark themes.
1. Chapter 1

**I'm not going to lie. This story is going to be very depressing.**

**I've had this idea in my mind for a little while and I've decided to go with it. There will be subtle connections to Seussical, but they won't be the central focus.**

**With that in mind, enjoy.**

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The more he stared at the girl through the little window, the more he could feel his heart breaking.

"How long has she been in there?" He asked the doctor.

"Not very long, since Thursday last week." The doctor pulled out some papers from the girl's file. His nametag read: Dr. Denison Dake. "She hasn't done much since she woke up a few days ago. She's been mostly quiet and unresponsive to the other nurses. Considering the little success we have had with her, we thought it be best to bring in a professional."

A smirk crept up on the man's face, "So you called me?"

"Well, you are great with kids. They warm up to you fairly quickly. Maybe once she warms up to you…."

"There's no guarantee."

The Doctor flinched, "Excuse me?"

"While I may be a strong influence on children, you may notice that she is not a child." It was true. Despite her small stature and slight baby fat around the face, her records stated that the girl was about seventeen.

"We're running out of options," Dr. Dake sighed. "She's got no family and no friends to speak of, even if she would speak. She needs someone, Cat, and you're the only one who could probably help."

He scratched the back of his head. The tall feline usually found any interaction, with any person, easy. Did it always go well? Not necessarily and that normally never bothered him.

But for once it felt imperative to make sure that he gave the best impression possible with this girl.

He jiggled the handle, "It's locked."

"I know."

"Don't you have a key or something?"

Dake's head sunk, "She's a bit of a special case. She's secluded herself from everyone else, so she locked herself inside." The Cat mentally face-palmed. He'd think the one relatively normal doctor he knew at the Geisel Institute (GI, for short) would at least hold onto the keys.

Then again, their history together had proven time and time again that while Dake was a typical, fully-functioning doctor, his methods were far from normal.

The Cat readjusted his focus, pushing back an embarrassing memory from their days at Cat Tech away in his mind.

"Well, how am I going to get her to talk to me if I can't get in?"

The Doctor patted his back, "You're in the Cat in the Hat. You'll figure something out." The Cat stared at the floor in deep thought as Dake walked away. With no way to get inside to interact with her, how could he possibly warm up to her?

He glanced back up at the little window and blinked in surprise.

The girl was staring back at him.

The Cat didn't flinch. He just touched the edge of his Hat, giving a nod before walking away.

"Just a bit of time," he said to himself, "That's all she needs."


	2. Chapter 2

Over time, he had adjusted to a daily routine while visiting this girl. The Cat, surprisingly having little to no business going on as of late, would wake up each morning and head straight to the GI after prepping himself for the day.

He was usually there around nine. Ten, if he felt like he was having a lazy day. He would walk over to her door, jiggle the locked handle and then watch her for a little while.

Sometimes she would look back at him. She waved maybe once or twice, but more often than not, she stared out her little window in the room. Before long, he had begun memorizing the girl's appearance. She had wavy dark hair that fell down her back and a triangular face shape that when combined with the hair suited her very well. Her clothes rarely varied in color and style. She often wore what appeared to be black leggings and a gray hoodie, curling herself up on her bed and looking out the window.

_Wow_, the Cat thought, _she looks lonely_.

And he was right. It didn't take him long to realize that the girl received no visitors, even from Doctor Dake.

"There's a reason I gave her the key," Dake responded when the Cat approached him a week after he began watching the girl. "Trust me, you'll know when she's ready."

He didn't quite understand it. Why was this girl always so sad? There were people waiting literally right outside her door to meet her, talk to her. If all the girl wanted was a friend, all she needed to do was open the door. However, he had an idea as to why she might have been so shy.

The Cat was aware that approaching someone like him was somewhat...difficult. Anyone of sound mind would probably find a six-foot tall cat to be a bit intimidating. But it usually took a matter of days for a person to warm up to him.

It was almost a whole month before something finally changed in his now-mundane and uneventful routine.

He nearly had a heart attack when he realized that the door was unlocked one day. He briefly wondered if this was a mistake. His instincts automatically screamed out that this couldn't be the case. Dake's words reentered his mind. Was this what he meant by her being ready?

He quietly stepped inside. The room was smaller than he thought, with a slanted ceiling, an average-sized dresser and, of course, the bed and the girl who never left it. He also noticed that the room looked as dreary and grayed as her clothes.

The girl didn't move. Maybe she couldn't hear him come in? He nearly turned around when he heard a small voice.

"Please don't leave." He looked back at the girl, who hugged her legs closer to her chest, making it more obvious that she was the one who had spoken. He spotted a small wooden chair sitting opposite of her bed and carefully took a seat.

No words were exchanged. She stared out the window, while the Cat sat staring at her, occasionally glancing at other areas of the room in an attempt to not make her feel uncomfortable. A comfortable silence hung in the air.

And that was how their time together was spent for weeks following.


End file.
